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For example, in this list I'd include the Standard Library - just not sure how to tell how actively it's used, or maintained.

How can you tell if a project is being actively maintained and used? Is there a way to compare different projects in terms of their popularity?

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This is just a "list of X" question and therefore not constructive. I'm not sure you can rework this to be a useful question. – ChrisF May 5 '11 at 14:05
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I edited your question to try and make it more constructive. Please let me know if it drastically changed your intent. – Anna Lear May 5 '11 at 14:31
+1 ChrisF: Agree, feel free to vote to close the question -- really wasn't sure how to phrase the question in a way that would not be a "list of question" – blunders May 5 '11 at 15:19
+1 @Anna Lear: It's okay, mainly just trying to get a feel for in Ruby what's out there beyond Rails, and trying to avoid the "list of XYZ" issue. Thanks for the edit, and feel free to vote to close. – blunders May 5 '11 at 15:21

5 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Sinatra

Sinatra's Github Repository

Update

Ok, I got what you're really asking. Your posted question is too different from what you're asking.

Well, there are many factors to consider in knowing if the library is actively maintained, like

  • how quickly the application is kept updated.
  • how many days before a high bug / issue is resolved
  • is the documentation is rich / updated (a library without documentation is practically useless)
  • how many user's website are using it
  • does your model developers (those whom you look up to) have favorable view on the library. Their opinion matters since they have the years of experience o evaluate the application

Well, that's what I've though (and there's more). I hope this helps.

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+1 @OnesimusUnbound: True, good point. – blunders May 5 '11 at 13:59
One questions though, how would you compare how actively used the project is to others -- asking in part because I would like to pick an answer, and not just gather a list of projects. – blunders May 5 '11 at 14:01
for the list of applications and websites that are using Sinatra sinatrarb.com/wild.html – OnesimusUnbound May 5 '11 at 14:07

There are thousands of open source Ruby projects, including some that have large scale enterprise adoption and entire open source companies behind them like Puppet. For instance, there are over twenty three thousand Rubygems. Rubygems and GitHub are good sources of information on project activity and popularity (many Ruby developers use GitHub).

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To name a few.

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Thought Merb joined Rails, is it still being actively developed? – blunders May 5 '11 at 14:09
Good question. My understanding originally was that Rails refactored its internals to use Merb. I didn't hear anything about Merb going away as a result. Last update at GitHub seems to be April 24, 2011 so I imagine it is still actively maintained. – Berin Loritsch May 5 '11 at 14:16
Here's the official repository: github.com/merb On that there are even more updates more recent. – Berin Loritsch May 5 '11 at 14:21

WATIR - http://www.watir.com/ Watir is an open-source (BSD) family of Ruby libraries for automating web browsers. It allows you to write tests that are easy to read and maintain. It is simple and flexible.

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Redmine and ChiliProject. You can tell how active they are by looking at the activity tab (they use their own app to manage themselves).

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